Vision
CEJA envisions a future where all Californians, particularly those most historically impacted by environmental injustice, co-govern local regenerative economies that ensure collective prosperity and harmony with the natural world.
We practice self-determination through the democratization of land, labor, and resources in ways that repair and reverse the long course of environmental racism, the climate crisis, and colonialism. We steward clean air, sweet water, and vibrant land where our communities thrive with rewarding work, clean transportation, homes, and renewable energy.
Mission
The California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) is a statewide, community-led alliance that works to achieve environmental justice by advancing policy solutions. We unite the powerful local organizing of our members in the communities most impacted by environmental hazards – low-income communities and communities of color – to create comprehensive opportunities for change at a statewide level. We build the power of communities across California to create policies that will alleviate poverty and pollution. Together, we are growing the statewide movement for environmental health and social justice.
Values
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We value justice for low-income communities and communities of color:
Low-income communities and communities of color bear a disproportionate burden of pollution, environmental hazards, and climate impacts. We uphold the basic environmental justice tenet that all communities have the right to healthy places to live, work, and play.
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We value community voices and leadership:
The people most impacted by pollution and economic disparities – most often, communities of color and working class communities – can and must speak for themselves. We build the capacity of residents in communities that have long been left out of the current political structure so they can shape the policies that impact their health and quality of life.
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We value base-building:
CEJA’s members and partners are base-building organizations. An active base of empowered leaders that can credibly represent a large section of their communities is critical to building the future we want and to ensuring long-term success.
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We value diversity of people:
We embody a commitment to diversity – internally and externally – with regard to race, class, gender, and sexuality.
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We value building power in communities most impacted:
Working class communities and communities of color have been systematically shut out of power structures, from the economy to politics. We believe that building the power of these communities is essential to creating - and maintaining - the world we want.
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We value policy change from the bottom-up:
We believe that statewide policy is an important venue to contest power and realize change for our communities. Our goal is to shift the policy paradigm to a grassroots model that empowers the many community members who are fighting for livable and sustainable neighborhoods.
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We value systemic change:
CEJA believes that entire paradigms need to shift in order to achieve the world we envision. We need massive changes in our economic and political structures to eradicate environmental and social harm.
Brief History of CEJA
In 2001, CEJA’s founding member organizations came together to address a need in California’s growing environmental justice movement – a state level entity that could elevate the voices of place-based organizations, strategize through regional nuances, and advance a coordinated EJ agenda at regulatory agencies and the state legislature to secure policy wins for our communities. From 2001 to 2023, CEJA was fiscally sponsored by one of the founding members, the Environmental Health Coalition. Since then, CEJA has become a stand-alone 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with over twenty staff based across the state of California.
